100 Bullets - Plot

Plot

The initial plot of 100 Bullets hinges on the question of whether people would take the chance to get away with revenge. The mysterious Agent Graves approaches someone who has been the victim of a terrible wrong. Graves gives them the chance to set things right by providing them a handgun, the eponymous 100 bullets, and documentation of the person primarily and personally responsible for the recipient's woes. He informs the candidate that the bullets are completely untraceable, and any law enforcement investigation that uncovers one of these bullets will immediately stop.

Though all of the murders enabled by Agent Graves are presented as justifiable, the candidates are neither rewarded nor punished for taking up the offer, and appear to receive nothing other than personal satisfaction for their actions. Several people have declined the offer, while others accept. Those that accept see their actions unfold with varying levels of success or failure. The attaché and Graves' "game" is later revealed to be only a minor part of a much broader story.

Agent Graves was the leader of a group known as "The Minutemen," a group of seven men (plus one "Agent") who serve as the enforcers and police of a clandestine organization known as "The Trust". The Trust was originally formed by the heads of 13 powerful European families that controlled much of the Old World's combined wealth and industry. The Trust made an offer to the kings of Europe to leave the continent and their considerable influence and holdings, in exchange for complete autonomy in the still unclaimed portion of the "New World". When England ignored this proposition and colonized the Roanoke Island late in the 16th century, the Minutemen were formed. The original Minutemen, seven vicious killers, eradicated the colony and all of its inhabitants, leaving behind only a cryptic message "Croatoa" as a warning, reclaiming the land for the Trust. Since this time, the Minutemen's charge has been to protect the 13 Houses of the trust, serving as their force against outside threats and (more frequently) as police of the internal conflicts between the Trust families themselves. The groups' interactions are often facilitated by a person holding the title "Warlord" for the Trust, who serves as the Houses' liaison to the Minutemen.

Sometime in the late 20th century, the Minutemen were betrayed by the Trust and disbanded after Agent Graves refused to re-enact "The Greatest Crime in the History of Mankind" (a re-expansion of the borders of the Trust). The Minutemen retaliate with the assassination of a hooded figure in Atlantic City, and are then sent into hiding. Most of the Minutemen of that time were "deactivated" by Graves. These former Minutemen have their memories repressed for their own protection and returned to "normal" lives. This occurs prior (presumably some years) to the beginning of 100 Bullets.

As the story plays out, many of those who are offered the chance for vengeance by Graves are revealed to have been people wronged by the Trust or its agents, and six are revealed to have been Minutemen at the time of the events of Atlantic City. Trusting to his planning, some luck, and the importance of his "game," Agent Graves seeks to reactivate several of his Minutemen and recruit potential new members during the course of the series. With the "aid" at times of the Trust's current Warlord, the charismatic and secretive Mr. Shepherd, Graves sets into motion a complicated and deadly plot of revenge against the Trust, which divides into factions of the younger members plotting against the older.

The series culminates in the downfall of the Trust and its agents, eventually revealing that the attache and its contents are a metaphor for the limitless power of the Trust.